


Rain in Its Season

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Gratuitous Banter, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: The conductor came through fifteen minutes before the train was due at Sipsey Station, checking everyone’s tickets and taking payment where necessary. He cast Babe a curious look when he stopped—understandable, considering that most of the car’s other patrons were wearing well-loved denim coveralls and sturdy work shirts in preparation for a shift at the local mine, rather than their best hand-me-down suit. He checked Babe’s ticket and asked, “Family in town?”By some miracle, Babe managed to dredge up just enough politeness through the nervous excitement roiling in his belly to respond, “Buddy of mine, from the war.”The conductor’s eyes widened and he gave an approving little nod. Babe thought the guy might be smiling but it was hard to tell through the beard. He probably wouldn't be, if he had any inkling of the real motivation behind Babe's visit.
Relationships: Babe Heffron/John Julian
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20
Collections: Heavy Artillery Rare Pair Exchange 2020





	Rain in Its Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LT_Aldo_Raine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LT_Aldo_Raine/gifts).



> Julian's characterization is based largely on tidbits from _Brothers in Battle: Best of Friends_ , though his appearance remains what it was in the show. His family is entirely fabricated.
> 
> ~~More notes to come after de-anon happens.~~
> 
> Okay! Time to finally add these in: I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't acknowledge that this fic wouldn't exist—in any form, let alone the one it actually ended up in—without the support and feedback of **kingsnow,** **fiorediloto,** and **Muccamukk,** all of whom held my hand and offered cheerleading (and the occasional inspirational jam, looking at you **kingsnow** ) and who I can't thank enough for their help.

**March 15, 1946**

The air was still and grey when John Julian awoke with a start, chest heaving and body quivering, eyes wide. He scrambled to sit up and tried to catch his breath past the knot in his throat. His lips were chapped, jaw sore from where he'd gritted his teeth against the nightmare that was already fading. Johnny tried to hold onto the dream out of instinct, but little remained beyond the faint impression of blood and cold.

It was nothing he hadn't experienced on a hundred other nights, and shame welled up through him in a burbling geyser, seeping in alongside the fear wrapped around his throat in a vice grip. It had been more than a year since he got shot. He should be past this.

Johnny dragged a hand over his face, palm clammy and skin tacky with sweat, and fell back against his pillow with a sigh.

The croaking cry of a distant bird broke the quiet blanket of morning. Johnny pressed his lips into a thin line and took a slow breath through his nose. He could feel his pulse pounding in his throat and throbbing at the juncture of his right shoulder. He tilted his head to the left and rolled his shoulder back, wincing at the sharp lance of pain that leapt through the joint as it cracked. He swore and reached up with his left hand to dig his thumb in under his clavicle, pressing carefully against the raw ache settled under the bone.

"Gon' be rain today," he predicted to nobody in particular. Sane folk didn't often talk to themselves, but Johnny had grown used to the constant company in military barracks and foxholes and, later, hospitals. He couldn't quite bring himself to give up the habit, always half-waiting for a sly answer in a thick accent to come drifting over his shoulder when he least expected it, even though he knew better.

He glanced at the sliver of sky visible through the narrow gap in his curtains for confirmation of his conjecture. Sure enough, the forest was shrouded with steely clouds all the way down to the horizon.

Johnny stared for a long moment—a brisk breeze ruffled the dark canopy of mismatched trees and wound its way around the house with a soft moan, carrying with it a rattling scatter of dry leaves. Johnny craned his neck to peer at the alarm clock ticking away on his bedside table, squinting through the shadows until he could make out the position of the hands.

It was early yet, but not so early that anyone would look at Johnny askance for getting breakfast started.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, tugging the sweat-damp bedsheets into a haphazard pile against the footboard. It was chilly in the morning this early in the year, so Johnny dug a sweater out from his dresser and pulled it on over his pajama top before shuffling his way into the kitchen. He took care to avoid the squeaky board in the hallway as he went, even though he could hear faint rustling from behind at least two of the doors he passed. Junior, his eldest brother, had likely already left for his shift at the mine, but Ma would be up soon enough, to tend the garden and start the housework, and his older sister Linda would follow shortly if she didn't manage to beat their mother to the day.

The percolator was nestled next to a jar of fresh grounds on the corner of the counter. Johnny cast a cursory glance over the interior to ensure it'd been cleaned following its most recent use and then filled the canister from the sink faucet. He scooped a handful of grounds into the basket, set the percolator to boil on the back burner of the stove, and went to fetch himself a mug from one of the upper cabinets.

He grimaced when he saw the neat line of ceramic along the topmost shelf and didn't bother reaching with his right hand. Even if he managed to lift his arm that high, the steady ache wending its way out to his fingertips promised the very real risk that he would drop the mug before he wrestled it down to the counter. Johnny used his left hand to retrieve the mug instead, and settled for spooning a goodly portion of sugar into the bottom with his right.

He took a seat at the table just as the gentle rush of boiling water picked up to a steady burble. He was turning twenty-one in a few short weeks, but felt sometimes that he might as well be six decades older. He rolled his shoulder again, wrinkling his nose and frowning at the ache.

"Nursing the old war wound?" a voice asked from the doorway.

Johnny looked up to discover Linda leaning against the doorframe. She was in a slightly tatty white robe with her hair still pinned up under a silk scarf, one eyebrow raised over her fond smirk.

"Weather," Johnny explained, waving a hand to the window.

Linda hummed and sauntered into the kitchen. "Ought to take an aspirin, if it's bothering you," she said. "Or a shot of whiskey, at the very least." She grabbed a mug for herself and then ducked into the fridge for a bottle of milk. She gave it a sniff, made a muted noise of assent, and came to sit with Johnny at the table, flashing a wink. "I won't tell mama if you don't."

"It's not that bad," Johnny assured her. Linda arched her eyebrow at him again and Johnny shook his head. "Really," he insisted. "Just a little stiff. It'll loosen up."

"S'pose you would know," Linda conceded. She drummed her fingers against the table and rested her chin in the palm of her other hand. "Sleep alright?"

The question landed like a blow, and Johnny flinched.

"Lynn - " he sighed, but Linda held a hand up before he could articulate his protest.

"I'm only asking, little brother," she said, shifting in her seat. "Don’t gotta talk about it if you don't want to, just." She shrugged and pursed her lips for a second, eyes flickering down to the table. "I hear you, at night, sometimes, and well - " She straightened her posture before looking up again, brow knit over her serious gaze. "I'm here, if you ever _do_ want to talk, alright?"

It was an offer that Linda had made plenty of times before, though she had to know by now that Johnny was never going to take her up on it. She took after their mother, like Johnny and most of his siblings did—dark hair and dark eyes and a stubborn streak wide enough to bridge the Mississippi. It was an admirable trait, most of the time, but on occasion it left them mired in a stalemate like this brittle, unspeaking one Julian had carried home from the war, just another part of an unwanted souvenir collection, alongside the nightmares and the ugly knot of scar tissue along his collar.

"Sure," Johnny lied, and stood. He busied himself serving up the coffee and counted it a small favor that Linda seemed more interested in savoring her beverage than prying into his feelings. He stirred his coffee for a second and then took a testing sip. There was a lingering hint of bitterness at the tail-end of the sweet rush, so Johnny carted his cup over to the counter to add another pinch of sugar.

"I don't know how you can drink it like that," Linda observed over her own mug. Johnny raised his eyebrows and gave her coffee—so heavily doctored with milk it had been rendered a tawny caramel color—a pointed glance. Linda rolled her eyes. "That ain't hardly the same thing," she said, lifting her chin. "Better off having a Hershey bar for breakfast than fixing up a cup of coffee the way you do."

Johnny snorted. "I'll gladly take one, if you got one." He had seen men offer entire fortunes, first-born children, and, most amazingly, temporary retreats from frontline combat in pursuit of an entirely ordinary chocolate bar. If Johnny had possessed something of a sweet tooth before his enlistment, his current taste for common confection bordered on sacrilege.

Linda shook her head. "It's amazing any of you boys fed yourselves, over there," she chided, and took another sip.

"Army had cooks for that," Johnny grinned. Linda made a face that suggested she did not hold the Army's approach to the culinary arts in high regard, and Johnny shrugged. "Wager they did a fair enough job, seeing as ain't none of us starved."

"High praise," Linda drawled, pushing her chair back from the table. "Lucky for us both, I'm betting I can do a sight better than the Army. How do you want your eggs?"

"I can make my own eggs, Lynn," Johnny protested, but Linda was already stepping past him to snatch the woven basket from the pantry.

"No sense in both of us cooking," she said. She had the basket tucked in the crook of one arm, contents covered by a soft blue cloth. She lifted the corners to reveal a cluster of speckled brown eggs and counted them under her breath. "That'll do," she said with a grin, and then waved a hand at Johnny, shooing him back to the table. "Sit on down, now. I'll thank you not to crowd me."

Johnny held his hands up and retreated to his seat at the table without further protest. There was no arguing with Linda when she got it into her head to fuss, and besides, of the two of them she was the better cook.

"How do you want 'em?" she asked again, setting a pan on the stove. She looped back to the pantry, rifling through the lower shelf where Mama kept all the root vegetables, and then peered into the refrigerator with an inquisitive frown. "Not quite enough to do up a hash," she reported, bumping the door shut with her hip. "I've a mind to fry 'em up, unless you'd rather something else."

"Fried's fine."

Their mother appeared just after Linda had dished up the first two eggs alongside a couple of thick slices of toast, while she and Johnny were squabbling over who ought to be served first.

“I can’t very well eat _and_ cook at the same time,” Linda said.

“Then I can wait,” Johnny insisted.

Linda glared over her shoulder. “They’ll get cold.”

“Don’t take _that_ long to fry an egg,” Johnny snorted.

Linda jabbed the spatula toward the plate on the table with a warning glower.

“Well,” Mama said, gliding into the room in a sturdy brown work dress. “Lovely to see you two in such high spirits so early in the day.”

“Mama,” Linda greeted without turning around. “Would you please tell your darling baby boy to get after the eggs his sister so kindly made him before they get cold and go to waste?”

Mama circled around behind Johnny's chair and rested her hands on his shoulders. He reached up to cover her fingers with his own for a second and closed his eyes as she bent to drop a kiss against his hair.

“Do well to heed your sister’s warning,” Mama told Johnny, nodding to the plate at the center of the table. Thin curls of steam were still drifting lazily up from its surface. “A cold egg ain’t no way to start the day.”

“I was trying to be polite."

Mama squeezed Johnny's shoulder—only the left one; she knew better than to trouble the other, especially on a day like this—and clicked her tongue.

“Sometimes,” she said, taking the seat next to him, “politeness is letting others look after you. And sometimes, politeness is letting your poor, dear old mother have the first serving.” She grinned and reached out so she could slide the plate over in front of her while Johnny laughed.

It was a modest but enjoyable meal, with Johnny's youngest sister and the true baby of the family, Caroline, dragging herself out to blink into a cup of coffee halfway through. Johnny gathered up the dishes after everyone had finished and was elbow deep in a sink full of hot, sudsy water when Linda made a strange, choked noise and asked from the table, “Johnny, didn’t you say your Army buddy was fixing to arrive sometime today?”

Johnny glanced over at her. She was peering out the window over their mother’s shoulder but turned a wide, guileless grin on him when she felt the weight of his gaze.

“Heffron, yeah,” Johnny confirmed with a nod. “Ed Heffron. We met in jump school. He oughta be here around lunchtime. Planned to catch the ten o’clock from Birmingham.”

“You don’t say.” Linda blinked, slow, and pursed her mouth in the way she always did when she was making a concerted effort not to laugh. A muscle in her cheek twitched, and Johnny frowned.

It was rarely a good sign when one of his sisters was so blatantly up to something. Linda took a demure sip from the last remaining dregs of her coffee and then stood and clapped her hands together.

“Well,” she announced, with all the dramatic glee of a carnival barker, “I think I’d best go and get my face on, because it looks to me like your Mr. Heffron got an early start.” She pointed to the window and Johnny dropped the plate he’d been scrubbing back into the sink with a clatter and a splash.

As he rushed across the room and yanked the thin gingham curtains aside, Linda ducked to murmur something to Caroline, who startled and squeaked and scurried into the hall on Linda’s heels, clutching her coffee mug like it was a buoy in the hands of a drowning man.

"You’d best take care not to spill on my rug!" Mama hollered after her.

Johnny pressed his face so close to the window that his breath trailed a line of fog along the glass. Down at the end of the lane was a tall young man in a crisp white shirt and sober brown suit, with a carpetbag in hand. He was pacing back and forth in the dust and, it appeared, muttering to himself as he marched.

Johnny, who would recognize that cocksure lope and shock of auburn hair anywhere, watched in gobsmacked awe as none other than Babe Heffron swept his hand out in a sharp gesture and then reached up to scrub at the back of his neck. There was a pink flush to his face that Johnny could make out even from this distance. His heart hammered so hard against his ribs it knocked the wind right out of him. The sensation was not altogether unlike the sudden, invigorating plummet when a man stepped out of an airplane for the first time.

“Is that him?” Mama asked, from the vicinity of Johnny's shoulder.

Johnny jumped and nodded. “Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah, it is.”

Out in the lane, Babe pinched at the bridge of his nose and then shook his head and turned to stride in the other direction.

“Well,” Mama squinted up at the clouds overhead, “best go and fetch him before the storm starts up.”

“Yeah.” Johnny‘s pulse was pounding in his ears and his voice sounded very far away. “Yeah, I’ll just. Go and do that.” He turned on his heel and headed for the front door at a stuff, mechanical clip. He’d made it halfway down the hall before his mother’s voice caught up to him.

“John. John. _Johnny!”_

Johnny froze, wheeling around. “Mama?”

She shook her head and smirked, dragging her gaze pointedly to the vicinity of his knees and back up again. Johnny followed suit and flushed to the roots of his hair when he saw the blue-and-white striped cotton of his pajama bottoms bunching around his bare feet.

“Far be it from me to intrude on your reunion, son," Mama said, arching an eyebrow, "but I think you might want to get dressed first.”

* * *

The conductor came through fifteen minutes before the train was due at Sipsey Station, checking everyone’s tickets and taking payment where necessary. He cast Babe a curious look when he stopped—understandable, considering that most of the car’s other patrons were wearing well-loved denim coveralls and sturdy work shirts in preparation for a shift at the local mine, rather than their best hand-me-down suit. He checked Babe’s ticket and asked, “Family in town?”

By some miracle, Babe managed to dredge up just enough politeness through the nervous excitement roiling in his belly to respond, “Buddy of mine, from the war.”

The conductor’s eyes widened and he gave an approving little nod. Babe thought the guy might be smiling but it was hard to tell through the beard. He probably wouldn't be, if he had any inkling of the real motivation behind Babe's visit.

The conductor tapped the brim of his hat when he handed the ticket back. Babe accepted the little stub with shaking fingers and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket as the conductor trundled off to the front of the car.

“Unloading at Sipsey Station, six minutes!” he bellowed, wrenching the door open behind him. “Take care to remember all personal belongings and watch your step as you exit the train!”

Pronouncement made, he ducked into the next car on the line, gruff holler fading into the distance, and Babe settled in for the final few minutes of the journey.

He lurched to his feet as the train rolled to a stop a short time later, one hand curled over the top of the seat in front of him to keep himself steady. A low rumble started up amongst the miners as they stretched and readied themselves for the long day that lay before them. Babe nodded most of them along before retrieving his bag from the luggage rack overhead.

He hesitated in the doorway, stomach twisting. In a few short moments, presuming there were no unexpected hurdles to overcome, Babe would be within spitting distance of Julian for the first time since he’d nearly watched him bleed out in the snow back in the Bois Jacques. It felt like a miracle, or like one of the dreams that had plagued Babe since he got home, though those had a tendency to take darker turns when he least expected it.

The platform at Sipsey Station was a short row of planks strung between two small, ramshackle booths that had seen better days. Most of the miners gave the structure a wide berth, circling around to pile into a couple of open-topped vehicles that had been parked in the street. Each car was painted with what looked like a logo on the side in green and white, but Babe couldn’t quite make it out from here.

There was a peaked roof connecting the two little station buildings, and Babe ducked under it and out of the wind, casting a wary glance to the sky. It was bad enough that he intended to show up on Julian's doorstep significantly ahead of schedule—the last thing he needed was to be halfway drowned, besides.

Nobody appeared to be in attendance at either the ticketing window or the postal kiosk, which Babe supposed he could understand, considering it was so early yet that the dishwater gloom of dawn was just starting to seep away through the thick clouds overhead. There was light spilling from the former, at least, so Babe wandered over and rapped his knuckles against the bars.

“Hey, uh, hi? Hello?” he called, over the muted metallic ding. “Anybody there?”

There was no answer beyond the low howl of the wind as it sluiced past the station. Babe pressed his mouth into a line and sighed through his nose, regret twisting the loose tangle of nerves in his belly into a proper knot.

He ought to have waited and taken the ten o'clock train like he had originally planned rather than hopping aboard the six o'clock on a whim, but sitting around the station in Birmingham for another four hours when Julian was so close at hand had proven a distinctly unappealing prospect. The city attendant had been happy enough to change Babe's ticket, if slightly baffled as to why he might want to travel to Sipsey so early in the day, but that, Babe thought, had been that.

Now he was stuck in the Alabama backwoods with only a vague idea of where he was supposed to be going and even less of a clue as to what he might do when he got there. Still, he considered, he had Julian's address, and an admittedly somewhat lacking description of the house he was looking for.

"Looks about like any house, I s'pose," Julian had said when Babe asked him about weeks ago. His voice had sounded flat, accent twanging sharper than usual through the distortion of the telephone line. “White walls, brown roof, yellow curtains—Ma's got a powerful fondness for yellow. Not sure what it matters, though."

"Well, how d'you figure I'm gonna find it if I don't even know what it looks like?" Babe had asked, leaning back against the wall in his apartment hallway and crossing his arms over his chest, phone tucked between his cheek and his shoulder.

"I planned to come and collect you from the station, first of all," Julian said. "That oughta take most of the guesswork out of it."

"What, like a package?"

"Express delivery," Julian confirmed. Babe could picture the sly little quirk to his mouth just from his tone. "Philadelphia direct."

"I'll be sure to wear the proper postage," Babe had promised while Julian laughed, and the conversation rolled on until Babe’s ma came and scolded him for stretching out the telephone cord.

"Twelve fifty-three," Babe muttered in the here and now, thinking back on the sheaf of letters he had stuffed into his sock drawer at home. He should have brought one of Julian’s neatly addressed envelopes with him, just to be certain he was remembering right. "Little Creek Road. White house, brown roof, yellow curtains.”

He took a cautious step out onto the main thoroughfare, which boasted one looming general store, a grocer, and a restaurant that had seen better days, but was otherwise lined with modest homes as far as Babe could see. Two of them were brick. The rest had been constructed of nearly identical white clapboard.

Babe sighed, hefted his bag, and started walking.

By some stroke of luck, he happened upon a local after about ten minutes. She was wearing a housecoat over a simple blue dress and her mostly-white hair was pulled into a tidy knot at the back of her head. She was leaning over the railing of her porch to pluck at a fussy looking rose bush and glanced up curiously when Babe paused at the edge of her lawn.

“S’cuse me ma’am!” he called, polishing up his most polite smile. “I’m sorry to bother you this early, but, uh, d’you think I could trouble you for some directions?”

The woman rubbed her hands together and then crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing a suspicious glare at Babe. “Whereabouts you fixing to get?”

“I’m looking for John Julian,” Babe explained. “Got a place somewhere down Little Creek Road. You know it?”

“Do I know it,” the woman echoed with a snort, sucking her teeth and swatting at the air with both hands. She came down the steps and the narrow gravel lane, talking all the while. “‘Course I know little Johnny Julian. Knew his daddy, and his grandaddy Julian, too, ‘fore that. Not a day goes by my Ruthie can’t be found within a stone’s throw of their middle girl, Linda.” She came to a stop a few feet away, planted both hands on her hips, and fixed Babe with a considering eye. After a moment’s scrutiny she pursed her lips, nodded once, and wagged a finger at him. “You’ll be the friend from the city, then. The one our Johnny met during the war?”

“Yes ma’am,” Babe confirmed, offering a hand. “Edward Heffron. Most folks just call me Babe. ‘s a pleasure to meet you.”

One of the woman’s thin eyebrows rose but she shook his hand gamely enough, one side of her mouth curling up.

“Clara Beecher,” she said. “Mrs. Beecher’ll do.” She pointed toward the end of the road. “To reach Little Creek, keep on down this road another five minutes or so. Come to a corner with a mulberry tree hanging out over the street, turn left.” She squinted at him for a long second, searching. “You know a mulberry?”

"Uh, no, ma'am, not really." Babe shook his head. “Mostly in pies.”

Mrs. Beecher snorted again and gestured to a skinny young tree in a yard not far off. Its trunk was reddish and its leaves a light, vibrant green even in the grey cast of the looming storm.

“The Treadaways got one in their yard there, such as it is.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue, adding in a low, murmured aside, “The good Lord only knows what Alice Treadaway was thinking, ordering in a bag of tree feed all the way from New Jersey. As though she’s got better to do with her time than boil up eggshells like the rest of us.”

She looked over at Babe, who nodded in blind commiseration despite having no idea what the trouble with store-bought fertilizer could be. Mrs. Beecher half-rolled her eyes at his ignorance but her smile curved a little higher so Babe figured it was alright.

“One you’ll be looking for is three, four times that size,” she continued with a wave of her hand. “Likely because Alice Treadaway ain’t drowning it in foreign soil.”

Babe bit back a laugh and Mrs. Beecher flashed him an approving grin.

“Make that turn,” she instructed, with a dip of her chin, “walk until you come to a fork. Little Creek’ll be on your right. Shouldn’t take but twenty or so minutes. Much longer’n that and you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.”

"Yes, ma'am," Babe said, ducking a grateful nod. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Best get a move on 'fore the rain catches you." Mrs. Beecher waved him on and turned to head back to her porch. Halfway up the short set of stairs she held a finger to the sky and shook it, hollering over her shoulder, "When you see Johnny you tell him I expect he'll be in attendance at the quilting circle this weekend! Comp’ny does not preclude one's regular social obligations!”

"Yes ma'am! I'll make sure he knows!"

Mrs. Beecher waved again and Babe booked it down the block. The old woman had a personality like a bulldozer, though her directions were good. The prescribed twenty minutes and some careful attention to the local flora found Babe making his way down Little Creek Road, inspecting the house number and the color of the curtains in every quaint white cabin he passed. Number 1253 was exactly where it should be, at the end of the meandering street.

There was a bed of yellow flowers lining the porch—daisies, maybe, though Babe wouldn't know for sure—and light spilled out through a window on the far side of the house, trailing a long golden bar across the scrubby lawn. Babe hesitated at the edge of the grass, tightening his fingers around the worn leather handle of his bag so hard it creaked. It couldn't be more than thirty steps down the gravel lane and up to the Julians' front door.

Babe glanced down at his watch. It had just gone seven o’clock. The Julians—or some of them, at least—appeared to have roused already, if the activity in the far room was any indication. All Babe had to do was lift his foot and take a solitary step to get his momentum started. He swallowed and shifted his weight, leaning forward. His stomach yo-yoed down to his toes and back up again and Babe settled back onto his heels.

He checked his watch again. Seven oh-one. Babe shook his head.

It was too early. Julian wasn’t expecting him until lunchtime and here he was hours ahead of schedule. The Julians wouldn’t be ready to receive him. Was that really the first impression he wanted to make?

He glanced over his shoulder, back the way he had come.

Maybe he could go sit at the station for a while—now that he knew the way it would be no trouble to cool his heels for an hour or two and then make a return trip. He might still be early, but not in such excess. A low, ominous rumble pulled Babe’s attention to the sky. The clouds overhead were dark and swollen, ready to burst at any moment. He would be drenched before he made it halfway there.

Babe licked his lips and frowned at the Julians’ front door. It was painted a dark, nondescript blue-green that was starting to peel in places, with a tarnished knocker glinting at the center.

“All you gotta do is walk down there,” Babe muttered to himself. He rolled his head from one side to the other and bounced twice on the balls of his feet, like he was gearing up for a fight, or a particularly aggressive lindy hop. “Just walk on down and knock on the door.”

He took one step forward, then another. His heart climbed up into his throat, pulse pounding at the back of his tongue, and Babe came to a stop as suddenly as if he'd hit a wall. He choked down a noise of frustration, turning on his heel to stalk back toward the street.

What if Julian wasn’t even up yet? What if his family didn’t know that Babe was supposed to be coming? What if they _did_ know, and they didn’t appreciate the living, breathing reminder of the war? Of what had nearly happened to their son?

He got a little ways past the mailbox, back out into the street, and stopped again.

“So what if they don’t like you?” he asked, scrubbing at the back of his neck. He turned and took a couple of steps to the left, then swiveled back around to meander in the opposite direction. “You didn’t come all the way out here for them, you came for Julian. 'cause he asked you to." He hadn't, in so many words, but Babe had honed his talent for translating the spaces Julian left between sentences over a year and a half spent practically tucked into each other’s pockets—fighting the same fight, sharing the same heat, breathing the same air. He couldn't imagine that the skill had waned much in the intervening months, despite the distance.

Babe’s ears felt hot. There was a pressure in his chest that pinched in tight and then expanded back out like a helium balloon with every other breath. Babe sighed slowly through his nose and wheeled around again, striding back down the lane toward the porch. He didn't make it much further before what little courage he'd managed to scrape together withered and collapsed in on itself.

"You gotta be kidding me," Babe croaked, knees locked and stomach twisting. He balled his free hand into a fist and then shook it out and reached up to rub his face. His palm was damp with sweat, fingers shaking. Babe licked his lips and wiped his hand off on his coat. "Two goddamn years you spent walking the frontlines with the Krauts taking potshots at you and a little vacation is what gets you all stirred up?" He shook his head. "If Bill was here he’d give you a good knock around the ears."

He stomped back up toward the street and only managed to refrain from pitching his luggage into the dirt by sheer force of will. Even now, any number of nosy neighbors eager to form an opinion of the mysterious visitor from the city might be watching him slowly unravel, which was to say nothing of the Julians themselves. Babe glanced over his shoulder to the glowing window and nearly retched onto the gravel when the quaint gingham curtain twitched, confirming his suspicions.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed, whipping back around. He hunched his shoulders against a sudden, sharp gust of wind and wiped his face again, squinting his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Come on." Babe took a long breath in and heaved it back out in a heavy sigh. There was a tremor rattling under his skin and his insides felt like someone had scooped them out and then put them back in the wrong order. "Come on, come on," he repeated, in a low murmur. "Get your shit together, Heffron. Nothing to make a fuss over. It's just Julian." He took another breath, shallower and sweeter with the lingering taste of Julian's name on his tongue, and said it again. "'s just Julian."

"Don’t gotta sound so excited about it," a wry voice observed at his back.

Babe flailed his way through a graceless turn, nearly pitching onto his ass right there in the street in his haste.

There before him, in the middle of the road, stood John Julian. He looked just as good as Babe remembered—better, even, free of blood and snow, wearing a green knit sweater and a pair of rumpled grey slacks with his hair tousled like he’d just rolled out of bed. A crooked smile tilted shallow dimples into his wind-bitten cheeks and his dark gaze was soft under his long lashes.

Babe swallowed, throat dry and eyes stinging. “Hey there, Johnny,” he said. His voice came out thick and gummy, like someone had smeared peanut butter over a radio speaker.

“Babe,” Julian replied, and Babe’s heart lurched against his ribs at the sound of his name in that familiar tenor. Julian arched a teasing eyebrow and put his hands on his hips. “S’been awhile.”

“Too long,” Babe agreed, voice low. He felt like he might float off into the stratosphere or else sink straight through the ground. "I tried to make it back sooner, but – " Babe's voice caught at the back of his throat and he had to look away. He swallowed past the ache in his chest, raised a loose fist to his mouth, and cleared his throat into it. “There was a war on, y’know?” he said once he’d gotten his voice back, lifting one shoulder in a shrug and smiling when Julian laughed.

“So they tell me,” Julian agreed. When Babe managed to look back up at him, the sly edge to Julian’s expression had softened, buffed back down to tenderness, though there was something ragged lurking at the edges. The naked affection on his face was nearly enough to cut Babe down at the knees. Julian tilted his chin toward his shoulder, gaze never straying even an inch from Babe’s own. “What d’you say we head inside before it starts pissing buckets?”

Babe snorted, and licked his lips. “Lead the way,” he invited with a nod.

He raised his eyebrows when Julian just stood there, staring at him, for another long moment. Julian was chewing at his lip with his brow pulled into a thoughtful gnarl. He started to raise one hand, slowly, as if in a daze, but jerked it back down to his side and pulled his gaze away when a rolling tattoo of distant thunder drummed through the air and stirred him out of whatever momentary funk he'd slipped into. Julian huffed a breath through his nose, shook his head, and then turned and strode back toward the house, beckoning Babe with a lazy wave as he went.

"C'mon then. Mama'll do you up a coupla eggs if we're quick about it."

Babe followed him down the gravel pathway, drinking in the rhythm of Julian's motion as he walked—the gentle sway of his shoulders and the easy slope of his stride. He was wearing a pair of weatherbeaten black leather oxfords that looked about a size too big, and he didn't appear to have any socks on. Babe caught a pale flash of skin at his ankle every time he took a step.

Julian paused at the bottom of the porch, ushering Babe up the stairs without fanfare. "Lucky you found us," he commented, leaving a cautious few inches between them as he reached past Babe to open the door. It hadn't properly latched when Julian had come out, so he didn't bother with the handle, just pressed his palm flat against it and pushed.

Babe's eyes skimmed along Julian's narrow wrists and long fingers, stark against the deep ocean green of the peeling paint. Heat flooded his face and Babe reached up to adjust his collar as Julian stepped around him.

"I had help," he admitted, with a rasp to his voice that only made the warm flush flare even hotter. "Mrs. Beecher, few streets back."

Julian craned his neck to stare over his shoulder, eyebrows nestled just below his hairline in twin arcs of disbelief. "Mrs. Beecher?" he echoed. Babe nodded, and Julian shook his head with a snort, mouth curved into a wry, teasing smirk. "Lucky you."

"That's one word for it," Babe muttered, with feeling, and Julian slouched through the open doorway on a wave of half-choked laughter.

He led the way into a cozy sitting room, where an austere-looking woman was poised in the middle of the room with her hands clasped loosely in front of her. She had dark hair, streaked liberally with grey and pulled into a braided coil at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were the same hooded almonds as Julian’s, under the same sweeping fan of lashes, in the same shade of brown so dark it was almost black.

“Mama,” Julian said, waving a hand in Babe’s direction. “This is Edward Heffron.”

Mrs. Julian looked Babe up and down, and Babe felt an all new flood of embarrassment roar up through him at the weight of her gaze.

“Edward,” she said after a long moment, smirk quirking to life at the corner of her mouth. “You’re early.”

“Yes ma’am,” Babe agreed, taking a couple of awkward steps forward so he could offer her a stiff hand. “Er,” he added, as Mrs. Julian closed her cool fingers around his, “sorry, ma’am.”

Mrs. Julian’s gaze floated over his shoulder and she arched an eyebrow. Babe was suddenly and distinctly certain that Julian was laughing at him from across the room, despite the silence at his back.

“Well, Edward,” Mrs. Julian announced, returning her attention to Babe’s burning face, “it is lucky for us both that politeness absolves a multitude of sins.” She turned a bit and extended a hand toward the hall behind her. “Might we offer you some breakfast? I don’t expect you had the time to eat before getting on the train.”

“No ma’am,” Babe agreed. “I mean, yes ma’am.” He shook his head and took a breath. “I mean, no, I didn’t have time to eat, and yes, breakfast would be great,” he amended. He felt like a proper fool, but Mrs. Julian’s eyes were sparkling over the pert curve of her smile and Julian hadn’t hustled him back outside just yet, so Babe supposed he hadn’t done any irreparable damage thus far. “And please, call me Babe. Everyone does, even my own mother.”

“Believe it or not, that’s the God’s honest truth,” Julian piped up from behind him, closer than Babe had expected. He started to turn but Julian’s hand was curled over his shoulder before he could move, his body a warm pillar along Babe’s side. His grin flashed white in the corner of Babe’s vision and Babe reflected it back without a thought. “Only person I ever heard call you Edward more’n once was the Doc.”

The memory hit Babe like a slug to the chest, sudden and painful—Eugene Roe, huddled next to him in a foxhole with a pitiful half a chocolate bar in hand, finally saying Babe’s name right for once as he promised that they’d done everything in their power to try and make sure Julian would be okay, that his survival was in the hands of God and the U. S. Army, now, and all they could do was pray for the best.

“He got it, eventually,” Babe offered, aiming for levity. He must have landed pretty far short, because Julian’s enthusiasm dimmed and he pulled his hand away, establishing a few careful inches of space between them. Babe glanced over and found Julian studying him, dark and intense. There was a soft furrow at his brow and his eyes were curious over his shallow frown.

“In that case, Babe,” Mrs. Julian said. Both Babe and Julian jumped and looked over at her. She appeared as captivated by their awkward antics as one might be in attendance at a Broadway show. Guilt and embarrassment twisted Babe’s gut into a pretzel as he fought the urge to fidget. “Mayhap Johnny can get you settled while I work up a quick bite. How does that sound?”

Babe managed a passable grin and nodded, “That sounds wonderful, Mrs. Julian. Thank you.”

Mrs. Julian dipped her chin at him and then pinned her son with a sly, teasing stare. “Perhaps this time,” she intoned, as she retreated toward the kitchen, “he’ll even make it all the way out of his bed clothes before he goes haring off to greet the day.”

Babe frowned, confused, and turned his head to discover Julian standing stiff at his side, flushed so pink he might as well be a radish. Babe opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but choked on a laugh instead when he caught sight of Julian’s collar. Sticking out over his sweater in a pair of broad twin arrowheads, striped white and blue, it was very obviously the top half of a pajama set. Babe couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before.

“Happy to see me, huh?” he grinned, reaching up to flick at one side.

“Shut up,” Julian glared, swatting Babe’s hand away and shoving him into the hall.

* * *

It was strange, Johnny thought, to have Babe here, in his space, poking around his bedroom like it was a much-anticipated exhibit at a museum. He had dropped his bag in the corner on Johnny’s instruction and then set about with his hands in his pockets, peering intently at the array of photographs and childhood keepsakes lining the windowsill and scattered across the dresser.

Babe reached up to brush his fingers over a battered old copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s _Treasure Island_ that was two wrong turns from losing its binding, a tiny smile quirking the corners of his mouth.

“I loved this one when I was a kid.” He picked it up and flipped it over, huffing a soft laugh when he noticed the dog-eared baseball card keeping place a third of the way through. He shook his head and set it back down.

“Me too,” Johnny offered. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest, watching, enraptured, as Babe made a slow circuit of the room. “Picked it up again after I got home.” He hesitated for a second and then licked his lips and forced himself to continue in the same casual tone, “Had a lot of time to kill, even after the stitches came out.”

Babe went rigid all at once, still as a statue for the space of a heartbeat before he laughed again—a little, bitter kernel of sound caught in the back of his throat.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he murmured. He looked over at Johnny from under the furrowed gnarl of his brow, rapping his knuckles in an absent, off-tempo burst against the lip of the dresser. “How was that, anyway? You never said in your letters.”

Johnny raised his good shoulder in a shrug. “Wouldn’a made for very exciting reading. Not much to do when you’re laid up in a hospital bed all day, doped out of your mind on morphine.” He sighed and pushed up off the wall, meandering into the middle of the room with his hands fisted against his hips. “Tell me you didn’t come all this way just to ask me that.”

Babe rolled his eyes and Johnny ducked a grin to the scuffed floorboards.

“Ask a guy _one question_ about how he’s doing and suddenly your whole vacation is a sham.” Babe shook his head and glanced over. When Johnny didn’t answer—just stood there, watching him—Babe reached up and scratched at the back of his head. He started to lift both arms at his sides, palms out as if in supplication, but abandoned the motion halfway through and let them drop back down again. “No,” he admitted with a sigh, tilting his gaze to the floor, “I didn’t come just to ask you that.”

Johnny licked his lips and took a cautious step forward, until he was close enough to brush his fingers against Babe’s own. Babe jumped but didn’t pull away, so Johnny let his hand linger, touching but not holding.

“Why did you come?” The question burst forth before Johnny could catch it. He followed it up with a grin that felt brittle in his mouth and hurried to add, “Surely you got better things to do’n spend a week in Nowhere, Alabama.”

Babe raised his eyebrows and smirked, tilting his head as he neatly side-stepped the question. “That’s giving me a lotta credit.”

“You’re the one went out and got one of them fancy big city jobs.” Johnny waved his free hand at him and Babe snorted.

“I don’t know that I would call it ‘fancy.’” He wrinkled his nose as if there was a funny taste to the word. “Not a lot of glamour in working for a whiskey plant.”

“Fair sight more’n you’ll find out here,” Johnny protested. He nudged Babe’s knuckles with his own and Babe nudged back. A little flare of electric heat burned through Johnny like flash paper.

“Well whaddya been keeping your dance card full with, then?” Babe asked. “Your ma don’t seem the type to abide idleness.”

“Oh, little of this, little of that.” Johnny shrugged, ducking his gaze away. “Can’t rightly work down the mine anymore, now I got a bum shoulder, but Mr. Wyshak lets me clerk at the grocery coupla days a week. It ain’t much, but the work is steady and it pays good.”

Babe didn’t respond right away, and the silence stretched out between them like a ribbon of molasses. Johnny risked a quick glance up and was unsurprised but a little disappointed to find a frown on Babe’s face, and his gaze trained on the collar of Johnny’s sweater. He blinked and pressed his mouth into a line for a second, seeming to steel himself before he raised his head to meet Johnny’s gaze.

“Does it hurt?” he asked in a flat, awkward blurt. “Still, I mean?”

Johnny considered lying. Whatever his reasons for making the trek halfway across the damn country, listening to Johnny bemoan his circumstances likely hadn’t factored in, but Babe could be a stubborn cuss when he wanted to be, and he had always possessed a keen sense of when Johnny was being untruthful.

“Sometimes,” Johnny admitted. “Worse when it rains.”

Babe grimaced and flicked a glance to the window, where a light scatter of droplets had just started tinkling against the pane. “Today?”

Johnny inclined his head. “A little.” He rolled his shoulder back, slow and careful, and was pleased when the joint didn’t catch or pop. “Not so bad now I’ve been up and using it awhile.”

Babe nodded, eyes dark and intent. He licked his lips and opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “Can I see?” he croaked, both eyebrows rising like he’d surprised himself with the question.

Johnny’s heart thudded hard against his ribs, a finely-honed sliver of ice wedging its way down his spine. “See?” he echoed.

Babe nodded again. He brushed his knuckles against Johnny’s once more and then turned his hand over so he could get Johnny’s in a proper grip. His skin was clammy, rough with calluses in a few places, and Johnny’s belly dove and resurfaced, wiggling all about like a fish twisting its way out of the stream at the familiar rasp of Babe’s palm against his own.

“You don’t gotta,” Babe said, giving Johnny’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I just - ” he shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s probably stupid, but I just keep thinking maybe if I could see it—y’know, the way it is now. Maybe the memory won’t be so bad.”

It made a backwards sort of sense, Johnny supposed. It was also flattering, if a little sad, that just the thought of his injury alone had been enough to haunt Babe, too, for more than a year.

Johnny took a breath and then tugged his hand away. Babe’s face fell, for a second, but shifted into mystified curiosity when Johnny tucked his fingers under the hem of his sweater and pulled it up and off. He shook the sweater out and crossed the couple of steps over to the bed, folding it into a sloppy square and dropping it on the mattress to buy himself a moment to screw his courage to the sticking place before he turned back around.

“Not much to see,” Johnny offered with a smile that wobbled like jelly against his teeth. He reached up to undo the first couple of buttons on his shirt, relieved when his fingers didn’t fumble or shake.

The scar was ugly, he knew—a fist-sized, gnarled divot of shiny pink skin that splintered and stretched in spidery tendrils over the curve of Johnny’s shoulder and partway down his chest. You couldn’t see all of it when he tilted his head to the side and pulled his shirt back, but from the way Babe’s breath hitched, high and broken like a sob, that was enough.

“Jesus,” Babe breathed. His eyes were wide and wet under the miserable furl of his brow. He took a couple of slow steps, gaze fixed on the ugly knot in Johnny’s skin, and raised a hand so his fingers hovered a spare inch or two away. Johnny stiffened under the first, barely-there touch of his hand and Babe pulled back like he’d been burned. “Alright?”

Johnny took a breath, licked his lips, and nodded. “Hands’re cold,” he mumbled.

Babe huffed a laugh and reached out again after he’d rubbed his hands together a few times, breathing into his cupped palms to warm them. There was a fine tremor under his skin when he made contact this time, so faint that Johnny couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining it. How long had it been since Babe touched him like this? Did he even still want to, or was this some strange, guilty sense of obligation propelling Babe down paths he would rather not retread? Worst of all, what kind of man did it make Johnny that he wasn't sure he could ask Babe to stop, even if it was?

The air in the room was warm and thick, pressing in close.

Johnny’s family was just down the hall in every direction. He could hear his mother humming to herself as she tended to things in the kitchen, and the occasional thud, followed immediately by burbles of muted laughter, from the bedroom his sisters shared. None of that stopped him from closing his eyes, tense muscles unspooling under the familiar heat of Babe’s touch, and tipping his head up.

Their noses brushed, and Babe made a soft, sharp keening sound in the back of his throat.

This close, he still smelled the same—cleaner, sharper, in a way, with the spice of some cologne that Johnny didn’t recognize muddling up the familiar bouquet of sweat and skin and Ivory soap. Even with the unwelcome addition, the scent catapulted Johnny back to a dozen filthy foxholes, and to a cramped billet in London before that, and a sticky bar alley in Georgia earlier still. When he opened his eyes again, Babe was watching him, soft and hopeful and near enough to kiss.

Babe tilted his head, leaning in, and then changed courses abruptly when a set of dainty footfalls clicked their way along the hardwood and stuck a decided pin into the moment.

They sprang apart from each other just as Linda stuck her head around the doorframe, rapping her knuckles against it at the same time as she delivered a cheery, “Knock knock!”

Babe had turned to face the window with his back to the room the moment he stepped away from Johnny, so he was spared the look of mischievous glee on Linda’s face as she grinned and flashed Johnny a wink. Johnny rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh through his nose, hoping that he didn’t look as embarrassed as he felt, though his pale complexion had never done him any favors in that regard.

“Johnny,” Linda intoned in a saccharine lilt, “mother would like to know how your guest takes his eggs.”

Johnny glanced over at Babe, who was still turned away from them. His shoulders were slightly hunched and the back of his neck was red, but he seemed alright so Johnny shrugged and waved a hand in Babe’s direction, instructing, “Ask him yourself.”

Babe straightened up at this pronouncement and turned around, while Linda rolled her eyes and stepped into the room, crossing her arms over her chest. Babe’s face was still an unflattering shade of pink all the way out to his ears but he was aggressively radiating normalcy while Linda gave him a surreptitious once-over.

“You ain’t even gonna introduce us first?” she asked, arching a pointed brow in Johnny’s direction. She had put on a coat of cherry red lipstick, and it made the stern line of her mouth seem more menacing than usual.

“S’pose I will if I have to,” Johnny grumbled, which made Babe huff a laugh and Linda shake her head, long-suffering. He held a hand out toward each of them in turn, announcing, “Linda, this is my buddy, Babe Heffron. He looked after me over in Europe. Babe, this is my big sister, Linda. She’s a meddlesome nuisance and you can’t believe a single word she tells you.”

“Charmed,” Linda said dryly, and Babe laughed again, a little louder.

He started picking his way across the room, resting a hand on Johnny’s elbow as he manoeuvred around him. The simple press of his fingers through Johnny’s shirtsleeve was enough to zing up Johnny’s spine like a lick of lightning, send a flare of heat sparking through his face. Why had his bedamned sister had to interrupt the moment?

When Babe was close enough, he offered a hand to Linda and said, with a depth of sincerity Johnny had only known him to adopt in the small hours, while they laid awake next to each other and swapped quiet secrets under the cover of dark, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Julian - er, Johnny, I mean. He talked about you a lot, over there.”

Linda arched an eyebrow at him, mouth quirking, and gave Babe’s hand a heartier shake than he had expected, if the flash of surprise that darted over his features was anything to go by.

“That’s kind of you to say,” she demurred. Babe shook his head.

“No, really,” he insisted. He leaned in, cupping a hand around his mouth and adding in a loud, dramatic whisper, “He told me you were his favorite.”

“I told you that in confidence!” Johnny snapped, picking up on the game immediately. He reached over to swat at Babe’s shoulder even as Babe turned to grin at him.

“Sure,” Babe agreed, nodding toward Linda, who had the back of her hand pressed to her mouth to cover up the delighted curl of her smile. “But now your sister likes me, see?” He reached up and tapped at his temple with a finger. “Tactical thinking.”

“Better tactic’d be to curry the good favor of the fellow sharing a room with you,” Johnny felt obligated to point out, posting up with a hand fisted against either hip.

“Maybe,” Babe shrugged. His grin was a familiar wicked curve. It had the same hypnotizing quality now that it had back in jump school, when Johnny had always seemed to find himself agreeing to participate in shenanigans that would court kitchen duty at best, if they got caught, so long as Babe was the one asking. “Got it on good authority the guy I’m rooming with already likes me pretty well, though.”

“Not for long,” Johnny warned.

By that point, Linda had recovered enough to gloat, “Oh, Johnny, has this boy got you pegged!” She dropped an affectionate pat against Babe’s bicep and then retreated into the hall, instructing over her shoulder, “C’mon then, boys, before Mama decides the two of you ain’t worth the trouble and throws you out into the yard to fend for yourselves.”

“I gotta change my shirt,” Johnny said, just to be difficult.

Linda rolled her eyes and then turned an expectant gaze on Babe. “What about you?” she asked. When Babe just frowned in confusion, she raised her eyebrows and clarified, “Your wardrobe up to scratch?”

Babe glanced down at himself, smoothing his tie along his chest and straightening the lapels of his jacket. “Uh, yeah?” he said. “I think so.”

Linda tilted her head toward the kitchen and demanded, “C’mon with me, then. Give Johnny all the time he wants to fuss but Mama prefers a punctual man to a shameless flatterer.”

Babe looked over at Johnny, grimace pulling at his mouth and eyes wide and uncertain.

Johnny waved a hand at him. “Go on,” he said. “Won’t be but a minute.”

Babe nodded and lingered for a second like he wanted to say something else. Whatever it was, he either decided it didn’t matter or couldn’t figure out a way to say it, because he sighed without a word to Johnny and turned a subdued smile on Linda, gesturing and inviting, “After you.”

When the pair of them had turned the corner, Johnny started in on the remaining buttons of his shirt and tried not to think too much about the way it made his pulse stutter to hear the mingled voices of his two favorite people meandering together down the hall.

* * *

The Julians were an amiable and accommodating bunch, even if they had also demonstrated a proven and irritating knack for interrupting intimate moments.

At least, Babe was fairly certain that was what it had been—or poised at the precipice of intimacy, at the very least. While it seemed he could still read Julian just as well as ever, he didn't quite trust in his own translation anymore.

Had Julian closed his eyes because he was overcome with a sudden bolt of desire, the same way Babe had been, or was he uncomfortable with Babe's hands on him? Had that tilt of his head been the irritated fidgeting of a man too polite to extricate himself from an awkward situation, or was it an invitation to kiss him? Either way, Babe supposed it was lucky that Linda had come along before he closed that distance. He'd gone so long without the sweet press of Julian's mouth under his own that he wasn't sure he'd have been able to pull himself away despite the ramifications if she'd arrived just a few seconds later.

By the time Julian reappeared, kitted out in a simple white cotton button-down, Babe had made fast friends with Linda and was well on the way to charming Julian’s mother into inviting him to stay out the month. Julian’s youngest sister had joined them a few moments before Julian wandered in, but where the rest of the family bickered genially back-and-forth, she seemed content to sit quietly and take in the spectacle, casting Babe a dead-pan look every now and again to further punctuate the humor of the situation. Conversation flowed free and easy for the most part, interrupted only by the occasional sly aside from Babe, who swelled with pride every time he managed to reduce a single one of the Julians to a fit of giggles.

Mrs. Julian was a mite too stately to throw her head back and guffaw at the ceiling, but Linda had no such compunction, and coaxing Julian himself to laugh had long been one of Babe’s favored pastimes. It had been hard won, most of the time, but worth the risk even under the strictest noise discipline that frontline combat had to offer.

Babe worked his way through two helpings of eggs and toast and a cup and a half of coffee before Mrs. Julian excused herself to tend to household chores with firm instructions that Babe leave his dishes in the sink when he was done and not worry about doing them himself. Caroline, the youngest of the Julian bunch, followed in short order, assuring Babe that it had been nice to make his acquaintance and promising she would see them both after dinner, when she was finished with her shift at the restaurant.

Linda lingered for a little while, gaze flitting between Babe and Julian as they recounted a handful of more pleasant wartime memories, brimming with captivated delight as though she were watching a tennis match.

“Well,” she sighed eventually, rising to her feet and smoothing her skirt down her thighs, “Ruthie and I are going into the city this afternoon—got a mind to do a little shopping—so it looks like you boys’ll be on your own.” She shot Julian a small, smug smile at that, though he didn’t seem to notice it and Babe couldn’t begin to guess after its meaning.

“Tell her I said hi,” Julian requested through a mouthful of toast he had stolen without reservation off of Babe’s plate.

“Tell her yourself,” Linda replied, leaning in to press a kiss to Julian’s cheek. “She’ll be at dinner tonight.”

Julian scowled and rubbed at his face, smearing the red imprint into a faded blotch, but Babe could tell from the way his eyes shone that his irritation was largely affected.

Babe jumped when Linda dropped a hand onto his shoulder, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek in turn.

“Take care not to let my brother get you into too much trouble, now,” she instructed. “Or at least don’t let anyone catch you at it.” She turned on her heel, swanning away before either of them had a chance to protest that if the Army hadn’t caught them with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar any number of times, the likelihood was exceedingly slim that the average resident of Sipsey would manage it.

The sudden retreat of all Julian’s family members left the two of them sitting side-by-side at the table, silence settled soft and companionable around them, like a velvet blanket. Babe chased the remainder of his eggs around his plate with his last crust of toast while Julian hummed an atonal snatch of some song Babe didn’t recognize and drummed his fingers against the tabletop.

“So,” Julian sighed, after Babe had finished eating and relaxed back into his seat with his hands folded over his belly, “whaddya wanna do today?” He had his chin in one hand and his elbow on the table, his whole body backlit by the gauzy grey daylight bleeding through the window behind him, like a saint in a stained glass window.

Babe’s chest clenched tight at the sight of him. “Anything you want,” he blurted, before he could stop to think about it.

Julian smirked, a soft pink flush blooming across the bridge of his nose, and ducked his head. “Awful lot of responsibility, that.”

“Somehow I think you’re up to the task,” Babe grinned. He shrugged when Julian looked up at him. “‘Sides, I’m city-bred. Can’t hardly tell my ass from my elbow out here in all this green.”

“Made your way here alright,” Julian observed.

Babe nodded sagely, spreading his palms out wide. “There but for the grace of Mrs. Beecher go I,” he agreed, biting back a smile when Julian laughed.

He glanced up and over Babe’s shoulder, peering at the clock on the far wall, and announced, “Little after eight-thirty, means there’s plenty of daylight left yet to waste. Might could play a hand or two of pinochle, if you’re inclined to stay around the house. Or there’s the library, in town, if you wanted to get out a little.”

“That ain't very decisive,” Babe said with a thoughtful squint. Julian kicked him under the table, a pointed nudge of toe against toe as their knees bumped together. Babe grinned and kicked him back and Julian hooked a foot around Babe’s ankle.

“You’re my guest,” he protested. “You oughta pick what we do.”

“Exactly,” Babe nodded. “I’m your guest, so it stands to reason I shouldn’t have to entertain myself, don’t it?”

“Christ, you’re terrible.” Julian shook his head.

“Hey, you invited me.”

“One of my life’s greatest regrets,” Julian promised, but he was smiling as he pushed his seat back from the table. “C’mon.” He jerked his head back over his shoulder. “I got an idea.”

They made quick work of gathering up the dishes and depositing them in the sink, and then Julian led Babe back down the hallway toward his bedroom, giving him the nickel-tour of the house as they went. There were pictures lining the hall, of Julian and his siblings—most of whom had moved away—and of Julian’s father, who had passed on some years ago, among a whole slew of other relatives whose convoluted family connections Julian was inclined to boil down to “Aunt, Uncle, or Cousin So-and-So.”

“My oldest brother’s named after my pa,” Julian explained, tapping a photograph of himself a decade or so before, standing with a taller, scruffier boy that looked startlingly like Julian, if fuller of face and figure, “but most everybody just calls him Junior.”

“Junior Julian,” Babe said, and Julian treated him to a snort and a gentle elbow in the side before continuing on.

They passed by the living room, where Mrs. Julian was doing a little dusting, and Babe spared a second to stop in and thank her for the meal and her hospitality in general. Mrs. Julian accepted his gratitude with grace and no small amount of amusement, then waved them on with similar warnings to those that Linda had delivered not ten minutes before.

“So,” Babe asked, once they were back in the relative privacy of Julian’s bedroom. He flopped down to sit on the mattress, leaning back so he was sprawled out with most of his weight balanced on his elbow, while Julian lingered in the doorway. “What’s this grand plan of yours?”

Julian looked over at him, dark eyes hot and hooded as he chewed at his lower lip. “Well,” he said slowly, “I thought - I thought we could go for a walk.”

“A walk?” Babe pushed up onto both elbows, eyebrows high, and nodded to the window, where rain was drumming down in a steady tattoo. As if to punctuate the absurdity of the suggestion, a rumble of thunder growled through the room. “It’s coming down cats and dogs out there.”

“You’re right,” Julian said in a rush. “It was a bad idea. Guess we’d better just stay in.” He tugged the door shut behind him, so slow and careful Babe almost couldn’t hear the latch click.

“Julian,” Babe said, “what are you - ”

“Why did you come?” Julian interrupted, with a short, sharp shake of his head. The question folded in on itself in the center, falling away almost like a sob. Julian steeled himself, squaring up as if he were preparing himself for a blow, and demanded shakily, “Tell me. Please. Why’re you here?”

Babe flinched, gaze dropping to the floor. His heart was a raw, swollen welt in his chest. He swallowed and licked his lips, slow and pained.

“Come on, Julian,” he rasped, low and quiet. “You know why.” He laughed, soft and hoarse, and shook his head, once. When he looked back up, Julian had taken a careful step into the center of the room. His eyes were very dark, his mouth very red, hope and fear warring in his every feature. Babe fisted his fingers in the cotton sheet underneath him, halfway to pleading as he insisted, “You gotta know.”

Julian sighed and came over to hover at the edge of the bed. Babe spread his legs to accommodate the intrusion.

“That was - ” Julian started. His voice failed midway through the protest, and he swallowed, took a breath, and regrouped at a lower volume. “You said that was just buddies, what we did over there. That it didn’t count. That you didn’t _want_ it to.”

He trailed his fingers along Babe’s knee and up his thigh. Babe bit back a breath, grasping blindly until he got his fingers around Johnny’s arm, resting his thumb against Johnny’s pulse where it beat in an erratic tremolo at his wrist.

“I know,” Babe breathed. “I know what I said. I was stupid, and - and scared, I - ” He shook his head. “I was wrong.” Babe was holding on so tight that he wouldn’t be surprised to find a bruise staining Johnny’s skin later. He heaved a shuddering breath and blinked once, twice, huffing another bitter little laugh as he croaked, “Jesus, Johnny, I thought you were _dead.”_

Julian’s breath caught hard, spine going stiff with whipcord suddenness, as though Babe had reared back and slapped him. For a long, frozen moment, they stared at each other. The only thing Babe could hear over the speeding drum of his own pulse in his ears was the endless rain thundering down overhead.

“Budge up.”

Babe blinked, the words not quite connecting in his brain. He frowned and shook his head, confused. “I - what?”

“Budge up.” Julian picked his hand up and flapped it, urging Babe to shift back the mattress. “If we wanna fit us both on that little old bed of mine, I’ma need some room.”

“Your ma,” Babe said, low and warning. He glanced nervously to the door and back at Julian’s face.

“Will be busy cleaning for at least an hour,” Julian assured him. He stepped in even closer, so that his knees were brushing Babe’s thighs in muted points of heat. “Everyone else is gone, and like to stay away for awhile. ‘Sides, you said it yourself: storm’s loud enough she ain’t gonna hear nothing, long as we’re careful.”

Even entertaining the thought was beyond reckless, but the part of Babe that hadn’t had a hand on Julian since Bastogne, hadn’t gotten him naked since well before that and had spent the better part of a year certain that he never would again, perked up and started howling. He looked Julian over, from his dark, mussed hair and his liquid black eyes to his skinny wrists and long fingers. He was pale and lovely, all narrow hips and legs that seemed to go for miles, and Babe _wanted_ the way he hadn’t since they’d dragged Julian off through the eternal Belgian snow, towing every last shattered shard of Babe’s heart in his bloody wake.

“They’re gonna run me outta town with pitchforks,” he muttered, hooking a leg around Julian’s calf and tugging him in.

Julian stumbled forward and dropped down over top of him, palms flat out on the mattress with both feet on the floor. “We’ve survived worse,” he breathed, close and warm and sweet, and found Babe’s mouth with his own.


End file.
